My Soul Is Bleeding
by Mr Sinister
Summary: Talia Josephine Wagner has arrived in a new reality... without the father of her child. How badly has this affected her?


**__**

**_My Soul Is Bleeding_**

   Talia Josephine Wagner lay on the cheap pallet in the cheap hotel room, staring with tear-blurred eyes out of the window at the full, bone-white moon. It was as inexpensive as possible, since she and the rest of the Exiles didn't have a lot of money between them – and without their former companion Magnus to synthesize credit cards, they were living on borrowed time at best. That wasn't the reason she was making the most of the room, though. No, the reality was a lot different, and a whole lot more painful.

   The worst thing about it was that she should have been feeling happy right now; happier than she'd ever felt before, in fact. But she wasn't. Instead of that feeling, there was a gnawing, burning grief curled around her heart, and around her womb, where her unborn child was growing. It reminded her of what she had lost to have this child. 

   John was gone, and he was never coming back. He was alive, but he was never coming back. Unlike Magnus, he had survived his own supreme sacrifice – at least where his body was concerned. John's Apocalypse-generated recuperative powers had already begun to heal him scant hours after his implanting of the anti-matter bomb inside Galactus. His mind, however, was a different story: Mariko had told her that he might well have been brain-dead.

   Talia sobbed quietly at that thought; it was the _not knowing that was killing her. If she'd only been allowed to stay a few more hours, she might have been able to help John overcome what had happened to him. If she'd been allowed to stay, she might have been able to see him open his eyes again, and to know if he was going to be all right. _

   _But that's never going to happen, now, is it? she thought, clutching at her squashed pillow and biting her lip. __John's gone, and I can't go back to find him. Abruptly, she pushed her pillow away and glared at the moon, stabbing one of the two fingers on her right hand at it accusingly._

   "Why did you take John?" she cried furiously, her angry, grief-stricken tears spilling down her salt-stained cheeks. "Why couldn't you have taken somebody else?" She bit her tongue then, until she could taste the metallic flavour of her own blood, in order to silence the sobbing that was wracking her body. 

   The sudden knock at the door startled her, and she almost jumped right off the bed in shock. Wiping her eyes and pushing her tangled braids out of her face, she said, as calmly as she could, "Who is it?"

   "It's Clarice," answered a voice from the other side. "Can I come in?"

   "If I say no, will you leave me alone?" Talia replied, sourly. "I don't want to speak to you right now, C." She sighed as Blink opened the door anyway, and poked her head around it cautiously. "What do you want, Clarice?" she said tiredly.

   "Just to talk," Blink told her softly. "I just want to help you, Tal. We're all worried for you – even Morph."

   "That chauvinistic jerk?" TJ raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Why?"

   "He's your friend, Tal." Blink spread her hands out to either side of her body. "We're all your friends, and we're all worried about you."  
   TJ shrugged. "Well, you don't need to worry. I'm okay now." She pointed towards the door. "Go away." 

   Clarice shook her head. "No, Tal, you're _not okay. I heard what you said just now."_

   Talia narrowed her eyes, and an angry indignation came over her tear-stained face. "You were _listening to me?"_

   Blink shook her head again, a little more insistently. "More like I couldn't avoid hearing it." She sighed. "Look, Tal, I know what John meant to you –"

   Talia rounded on the other woman abruptly, her yellow eyes flashing with rage, and her hands balling into two-fingered fists. "No, you _don't know what he meant to me, Blink! Don't even __think that you know, Clarice! Until you've been where I am right now, you have __no right to tell me that you understand! God… you didn't even know we were a __couple until two days ago!" Blink took a step or two backwards and held her hands up as Talia folded her arms about herself and looked down at her bare feet._

   "Okay, Tal," she said softly, her pinkish-purple eyes radiating love and concern for her friend. "Okay. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. But I want you to know that if you ever need to talk, then I'm right here, all right?" She touched the other woman on the shoulder and smiled hesitantly when Talia looked up. "All right?" she said again, a little more confidently.

   "Sure," Talia said listlessly. "Any time. Gotcha." She turned away towards the window, and Blink, sensing that she was no longer very welcome, began to retreat. She was just about to open the door and leave when Talia sighed loudly and said "Clarice? Wait up." 

   Blink turned back and tipped her head slightly to one side quizzically. "What is it, TJ?"

   "Don't go," Talia whispered, her voice suddenly raw and ragged. "Please don't go." She stretched out with her right hand, and Blink gripped it gently with her own, silently enfolding her friend in her arms without another word. Almost immediately, she felt the other woman silently begin to shudder with sobs against her, and she felt Talia press her head against her shoulder, as if searching for a comfort that was nowhere to be found.

   "We'll take care of you, Tal," Blink murmured. "I promise."

   "Why couldn't I have stayed?" Talia moaned plaintively. "All I wanted to do was be with him, and they wouldn't even let me do that…"

   "I know," Blink said hoarsely, stroking her friend's hair gently, and feeling her heart break as she did so. "I know. But we'll be there for you, TJ, I swear." She paused, and glanced at the sputtering bulb in the centre of the ceiling for a moment or two before she spoke again. "We won't let you down – either of you." 

   "I miss him, Clarice," Talia said, in a voice that sounded as if her vocal cords were being cut with hot sand. "I miss him so much..."

   "I miss him, too, Tal," Clarice said, knowing full well that saying that would not ease her friend's pain in any way, but not really knowing what else to tell her.

   Talia sniffed back her tears and wiped at her eyes briefly. "John told me that he'd thought Apocalypse had taken away his ability to have kids. He was so happy when I told him what I thought had happened… he smiled for the first time since we'd arrived on that world." A fresh solitary tear rolled down her cheek, glistening in the sterile electric light. "I really thought that we'd be a proper family once we'd gotten out of that screwed-up reality, you know? Like my mom and dad were." She snorted contemptuously. "Guess that's not going happen now, is it?"

   "It could still happen," Blink said quietly. "John's not dead. If we get the chance, I'll take us all back there and find him, I swear."

   Talia frowned. "Thanks, Clarice, but I don't think that's what the Powers That Be have in mind." She smiled sadly. "It's a nice thought, though. Thank you."

   Blink nodded. "Any time, Tal." She paused, and looked at the watch that her lover had given her. "I have to go soon. Calvin wanted to do some scouting around – see what he could see in this reality. He wanted me to come with him – but I'll see you soon, okay?" She disengaged herself from her friend's arms and began to move towards the door, but Talia shook her head and held onto her hand.

   "Will you stay?" she asked in a small voice. "Just for a little while longer?" Blink was about to say no, but then thought better of it.

   "Sure," she said, sitting down on the bed. "I'll stay for as long as you want me to, Tal. I'm sure Calvin can manage on his own this once…"


End file.
